


Battle of Wits

by PanicFOB



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: F/M, Language, Marauders, Post-Hogwarts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-21
Updated: 2019-09-21
Packaged: 2020-10-25 12:04:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,648
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20723930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PanicFOB/pseuds/PanicFOB
Summary: Your good friend Sirius crashes your date and has the audacity to start an argument with the man you’re on a date with.





	Battle of Wits

**Author's Note:**

> This fic was written for a challenge on Tumblr and was inspired by one specific scene from The Princess Bride movie.

You looked around as you entered the pub, searching for the date you were meeting here. You spotted him already in a booth sipping on a Butterbeer. He was a wealthy and handsome wizard who worked at the Ministry in writing magical laws. He had light brown hair that was slicked to the side, and you thought it might look so much sexier if he left it wild. Freckles were scattered across the bridge of his nose, and there was a cute one just at the corner of his lip. His eyes were forest green, and they reminded you of the lush vegetation in the Forbidden Forrest. It made you think back to days spent sneaking out of Hogwarts any time you looked into the green emeralds.

“Gerard! So good to see you,” you told him as he leaned up to kiss your cheek before you joined him in the booth.

“Y/N, how have you been? How’s work at the prophet been going?”

“Splendid. There are a few journalists that lean more toward fiction than fact, but I always triple check my articles before they go to print.”

“That’s wonderful, and certainly the right thing to do. That up and coming Rita Skeeter is constantly slandering half the ministry. It’s disgusting.”

“I agree. Rita and I are not friends.”

A waiter came by and the two of you ordered. You made small talk that wasn’t exactly enthralling but wasn’t entirely dull either. Just as your food was brought out, a group of wizards entered the pub with a loud commotion.

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” you said under your breath.

But Gerard had clearly heard you. “Do you know them?”

You were noticed by the group of men before you could answer. “Y/N! What are you doing here?” Sirius Black called out loudly across the room.

You looked down at the table and tried to ignore him.

“Are you on a date?” he was still practically shouting as he walked over to you. “Is this your date?” he gestured to Gerard. James looked just as amused as Sirius, and Remus looked embarrassed to be associated with the two of them.

“Sirius, it’s good to see you, but I am in fact on a date, and I would appreciate it if you would leave us be.”

“Please forgive him, YN. He’s rather sloshed at the moment,” Remus explained with an apologetic look.

“I’m barely tipsy, Moony. Don’t listen to him, Y/N. So, who’s this, then?” He pointed at Gerard once more.

Gerard cleared his throat. “I’m Gerard, and I think you should listen to the lady and leave us alone,” he said to Sirius in a stern voice.

The troublemaking look in Sirius’ eyes only grew at Gerard’s threat. “No. I don’t think I will.”

“Sirius, please don’t do this.”

“Yeah, you nitwit, kindly fuck off.”

“Gerard, he’s my friend. There’s no need for name calling,” you scolded your date.

“I’ll call him whatever I like,” he shot at you, and you were absolutely taken aback by his sudden ugly tone.

“Don’t you fucking talk to her that way,” Sirius said to the man fiercely with a threatening finger pointed in his face.

“If you wanted a date with her, you should have asked before someone else got around to it, Black.”

“That’s not what this is about, Gerard,” you assured him. “Sirius is merely drunk and likes to get a rise out of people.”

“Fine,” Sirius’s loud voice spoke over yours, “I admit it, I want a date. Let’s battle it out for her.”

“Excuse me?! I am not a prize that you can win over some drinking game.”

“Oh, this won’t be some drinking game, love. This will be a battle of wits. Remus, do me a favor and grab two glasses of red elven wine from the bar?”

James and then Sirius slid into the side of the booth opposite from you and Gerard. Sirius procured a vial of some red potion out of his robe pocket. “This is Hate Potion. Do you know what it does?”

“It reveals the taker’s worst traits and habits, I’m familiar, yes,” Gerard told him with a snobby tone.

“Correct,” Sirius confirmed just as Remus was returning with the two glasses of red wine. He slid into the booth next to Sirius and placed the glasses in front of the man.

“Thank you, Moony. Now, I’m going to put this potion into one of these glasses. You’re going to choose which one each of us drinks from, and then the loser’s worst traits will be revealed and Y/N obviously won’t want to go on a date with him anymore.”

“I honestly don’t want to go on a date with either of you already…” you grumbled at the ridiculousness of the situation.

Sirius picked up the glasses and turned away so that you and Gerard could not see which one he had poured the potion into. He turned back and replaced them on the table, setting one in front of Gerard and one in front of himself. “Take your pick.”

Gerard studied both glasses for a very long time. “Well, you’re a Gryffindor, so you would be brave in putting the glass in front of yourself. But your entire family were Slytherin, and you’re bound to have some snake-like qualities, so you might have been sneaky in knowing I would make the Gryffindor connection about placing the potion in front of yourself, so you put it in front of me instead. Then there’s the fact that you’re just arrogant in your own luck, so you might have gone ahead and placed it in front of yourself.”

“Oh, just get on with it,” Sirius complained.

“Agreed,” you said, wanting this disaster of a date to be over with already.

“Is that the captain of the Holyhead Harpies?” Gerard asked suddenly and pointed behind Sirius. He, James, and Remus all turned around to look, and Gerard switched the two of their glasses.

“I don’t see her!”

“I don’t see anyone!”

“My mistake,” Gerard said with a smirk. “I’ve made my decision: I’ll drink from the one in front of me, and you from the one in front of you.”

Sirius grinned. “Perfect.”

They both picked up their glasses and took large sips. “You lose,” Sirius announced arrogantly as he licked the elven wine from the top of his lip.

“You only think that, but I switched our glasses when you weren’t looking…. And I secretly hate mudbloods and hoped Voldemort would win the war!” Gerard clamped both his hands over his mouth, and his eyes were wide as if he obviously hadn’t meant to say that.

“I think I’ll be going now,” he said quickly before clamoring out of the booth and rushing out of the pub.

“Wow, looks like we’ll be investigating him at work tomorrow, James,” Sirius told his friend.

You couldn’t believe you’d been on a date with a pureblood elitist man, and you’d had no idea. He’d seemed nice enough. “How’d you know he’d drink the one with the potion?” you finally asked Sirius once you’d gotten over your initial shock.

“Oh, they both had the potion in it,” he informed you all with a shrug of his shoulders.

“What? Then why aren’t you shouting about your worst traits?”

“Because my worst traits are that I’m an arrogant drunk who likes to play tricks on people. That was already perfectly apparent, so there wasn’t much for the potion to do. I have no dark secrets, love. What you see is what you get.”

You let out an angry huff. Merlin, Sirius was such a cocky bastard. He’d been that way since back at Hogwarts, and that was the precise reason you had never gone on a date with him all those times he had asked. “You went through all that trouble just to make a fool out of me, Sirius?!”

James and Remus both instantly realized that this was headed for another one of you and Sirius’ blow-up arguments. “We’re just gonna give you two some privacy,” Remus muttered as they left the booth quickly.

“No! I wasn’t trying to make a fool out of you. I was trying to make a fool out of Gerard, and simultaneously trying to finally win a date with you.”

“But instead, you’ve humiliated me for not knowing that the man I was on a date with was basically a Death Eater, and you’ve made me a hundred percent sure that I never want to date you now.” You got up from the booth as well and stormed out of the pub without another look at Sirius Black.

He had followed you, though. You felt his callused fingers wrap around your wrist. “I’m so sorry, Y/N. Sometimes I get these wild ideas that I think will be entertaining to everyone, but I never consider who they might hurt. I was trying to impress you, but instead, I just made an arse of myself.”

“I’m glad you’ve finally realized.”

“It’s just… I’ve been in love with you for so long, and I have no idea how to convince you that I’m worth one date.”

“What? You’re in love with me?” Your heart was beating rapidly now. All this time you’d thought Sirius only had the goal of getting into your knickers; you hadn’t realized his feelings ran much deeper than that.

“I thought you knew.”

“How could I have known if you never told me? You say I’m fit and funny and a great mastermind for pranks. Never have you declared any feelings of love in the time that we’ve been friends.”

“I’m an idiot.”

“Very much so.”

“And I’m in love with you.”

You wrapped your arms around his neck and pulled him in for a passionate kiss. “That’s all you had to say,” you whispered against his lips.


End file.
